The NFL’s trading deadline is Tuesday, but it would be surprising if the Vikings were in the market for help. That’s because the rebuilding Vikings (1-4) are believed to be sellers more than buyers and would be willing to dump players rather than acquire them.

One trade possibility for the Vikings would seem to be aging cornerback Antoine Winfield, 34, for a late-round draft pick if not for his injured neck.

There’s also been chatter that the New England Patriots (4-1), who dumped receiver Randy Moss on the Vikings last year, would be interested in Vikings defensive end Jared Allen, 29, for a first-round draft pick. But that pick probably would be late in the first round, and that’s not nearly enough for the pass rusher who already has 8-1/2 sacks this season.

The only other trade possibility for the Vikings would seem to be defensive tackle Kevin Williams, 31, but that is unlikely, too.

PredictionMachine.com, which forecasts sports outcomes based on playing games 50,000 times by machine before they are actually played on the field, before the season predicted the Vikings would be 1-4 after five games. That’s turned out to be accurate, although the machine’s “Predictalator” had forecast the Vikings’ victory to be over Tampa Bay, not Arizona.

Tonight’s prediction by the machine: Chicago 21, Vikings 17.

Delmon Young hit four home runs in 84 games for the Twins this season before they traded him to the Detroit Tigers, for whom he hit eight homers in the remaining 40 regular-season games, then five more in the playoffs.

Joe Vavra, the Twins’ hitting coach, said Young’s swing for the Tigers is the same as it was for the Twins.

“I talked to Detroit’s hitting coach, Lloyd McClendon, and he said (Young) hasn’t done anything differently,” Vavra said Saturday. “The biggest difference is that he’s got guys behind him, so (opponents) want to pitch to Delmon because they know the next two guys behind him (Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez) are pretty dangerous as well.”

Vavra said Young, in 2010, “probably was the best hitter in the American League for two months. He’s still mechanically doing the same stuff.”

Young sends occasional text messages to Vavra.

“He said he has guys behind him hitting, so they can’t pitch around one to get to the other,” Vavra said. “They have to go after somebody, so they go to Delmon. So he’s sitting in a real good position there to get pitches. And when Delmon swings at pitches in the zone, he’s as good as anybody there is. His problem is that he expands his zone so much.”

Expect Josh Ripley and Mark Paulauskas to receive roaring applause from the crowd at the Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday night when the Wild host the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Ripley, a 6-foot-5, 185-pound junior at Andover High School, is the cross country runner who last month stopped during a race to pick up the 5-4, 100-pound Paulauskas, a freshman at Lakeville South, and carry him a quarter-mile to assistance after Paulauskas was injured when spiked and bleeding profusely on the ground.

The pair will make the ceremonial “Let’s Play Hockey” call.

By the way, it’s still uncertain whether Penguins star Sidney Crosby will make his return to the ice Tuesday after missing games since January because of a couple of concussions.

The Twins have received more than a dozen resumes for their Class AAA managing job at Rochester, N.Y., and are in the interviewing process.

Former Gophers QB Adam Weber, on his college roommate and current Denver Broncos teammate, wide receiver Eric Decker, who leads the Broncos in receptions: “I don’t think he was 100 percent last year (because of an ankle injury), so this is his first season where I think he feels good, and it’s definitely shown. He plays so much more confidently, and more at ease, like he did in college. I always believed he would play at an elite level. It’s fun to see him healthy and doing well on a big scale.”

The two-time defending Grey Cup champion Montreal Alouettes coached by Minnesotans Marc Trestman, Tim Tibesar and Andy Bischoff are 9-5 and tied with Winnipeg for the best record in the Canadian Football League.

After getting three points in five preseason games, former Gophers hockey star Jordan Schroeder has one goal in three regular-season games for the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League.

Howard Bahn, Dan Brink, Perry Doney, Don Tanger and Larry Weum will be inducted into the Minnesota Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Oct. 30 at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis.

Former Gophers guard Blake Hoffarber has played in two of three games for the unbeaten Fos Ouest Provence team (3-0) in France, averaging 16.5 points while shooting 47.1 percent from three-point range.

The St. Louis Blues have named former Minnesota State Mankato forward David Backes of Blaine their captain for this season.

Ron Gardenhire, Rick Helling and Paul Blanchard are among the speakers for the Minnesota Baseball Coaches Clinic on Oct. 28-30 at the Ramada Plaza in Minneapolis.

Beloved Don Waryan, who was golf professional at the posh Oak Ridge, Woodhill and Hazeltine National clubs as well as a past president of the Minnesota Golf Association, has been ill and is residing in a nursing home in Minneapolis.

Jim McGarry was an eighth-grader on the St. Mark’s baseball team in St. Paul in 1945 when he chased after a foul ball that had crossed railroad tracks near the field where he and his teammates played. A freight train hit McGarry, and he lost both legs. Eventually, after a long rehabilitation and artificial wooden legs that weighed nearly 40 pounds, he became a star for the Rolling Gophers wheelchair basketball team comprised mostly of World War II veterans. After coaching rejections from 50 schools, he became a successful high school basketball and football coach in Bigfork, Minn.

McGarry was inducted into the Cretin Athletic Hall of Fame last Monday at the St. Paul Hotel. The day before, however, he died of colon cancer.

Passionate Gophers football and basketball fan Jim Frankhauser of Como Park died of cancer at age 36 Friday night, and his group of 18 friends who made up the “Dinkytown Tailgaters” will be donating more than 150 pounds of pork brisket in Lot 37 outside TCF Bank Stadium before Saturday’s homecoming game against Nebraska to raise funds for his family.

Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub in St. Paul has added Canadian dishes to the menu.

Stillwater is the only high school in the United States to produce four males who have, post-graduation, run a mile in under 4 minutes. They are Luke Watson while at Notre Dame, 3:57.83 in 2003; Ben Blankenship while at Minnesota, 3:57.87 last year; Sean Graham for the Nike Oregon Track Club Elite, 3:58.40 in 2007; and Jake Watson while at Notre Dame, 3:59.40 in 2007.

The Twins, who spent a club-record $115 million on player salaries this season and ended up with 99 losses, have the budget to sign the players they need to contend next year, team President Dave St. Peter said.

“There certainly are going to be limits to where our payroll is going to go, but we’re not as focused as much on payroll as we are on our talent and on health,” he said. “But I don’t believe that payroll will be a barrier for us to do what we need to do.”

The Twins’ baseball staff concluded organizational meetings in Fort Myers, Fla., last week, planning the team’s rebound from last place for 2012.

“It starts with the health of our core guys – that’s priority No. 1,” St. Peter said. “Specifically Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Denard Span. And clearly, there’s going to be key decisions made on our free agents as well as on the Joe Nathan (contract) option.”

Beyond that, St. Peter said the Twins need to improve their fundaments.

“Play better defense, throw more strikes – we walked way too many people,” he said. “We got away from those core principles. And we’ve got to address some specific positions. Shortstop is a focus, shoring up catching is a focus, somebody who can spell Joe Mauer back there. And pitching, pitching, pitching.

“Those are the focuses. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’ve been here before as an organization and been able to bounce back. We think we’ve got a core group of players that, frankly, will come back in 2012 with a vengeance.”

Xcel Energy Center NHL scoring crew supervisor Barry Fritz and system manager Ed Zepeda were in Winnipeg to assist the Jets’ new crew on opening night this season.

Twins outfield prospect Aaron Hicks is hitting .242 after eight games in the Arizona Fall League.

Never give up: Justin Volling, a senior co-captain of the St. Olaf golf team, shot 5-over-par 41 on the front nine in the final round of the MIAC men’s championship at Bunker Hills last weekend but birdied three of the final five holes on the back for a 3-under 33 to tie St. Thomas freshman Alex Kapraun as co-medalist.

The Fall Cup youth soccer tournament, which began five years ago with 78 teams, had 254 teams competing last weekend at the National Sports Center in Blaine.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Don’t expect Gov. Mark Dayton to call a special legislative session this fall to expedite plans for a new Vikings stadium, although a stadium bill is expected to be approved at next year’s session.

New this season in the Wild dressing room is a policy prohibiting anyone – including media – from walking on the team’s carpeted logo in the center of the room. The team says it’s a respect thing, and the fine for the infraction is $250. The Wild’s Cal Clutterbuck, whose locker stall is near the logo, keeps close watch for violators.

An NCAA tournament berth for the Gophers men’s basketball team this season would seem to hinge on whether junior forward Rodney Williams finally plays to his potential. That would be averaging at least 14 points and a half-dozen rebounds.

The Vikings’ victory over Arizona last week dropped their odds for winning this season’s Super Bowl from 300-1 to 200-1, according to bodog.com.

New University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler is in full support of first-year football coach Jerry Kill, who was hired by athletics director Joel Maturi.

Last we heard was that Jacque Jones, the popular former Twins outfielder, planned to become a baseball scout by attending a special scouting school in Arizona.

New in NHL arenas this season, including the Xcel Energy Center, are LED-highlighted corporate advertising on dasher boards for a premium price.

Local brokers say tickets for the Wild-Edmonton game last Thursday night at the X were available for $5 for the upper level, $20 for the lower level.

John Harrington, 54, a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team and the new director of hockey operations for the Herb Brooks Foundation, keeps his Olympic gold medal in the bottom of a dresser drawer but takes it out if people ask to see it. He also uses it as motivation for young hockey players.

“If it can give somebody a dream about accomplishing something in their lives,” he said.

The 1-5 Gophers football team had a bye Saturday, but so did its next opponent, Nebraska (5-1). They meet in the U’s homecoming game next Saturday afternoon.

That was hall of famer George Brett in town to watch son Jackson play football at the University of St. Thomas the other day.

Gophers men’s hockey assistant Mike Guentzel, who sold his Woodbury house to move to Omaha, Neb., when he took a job there, is moving into a new house in Woodbury after returning to Minnesota.

Mounds View grad Mark Hamburger, signed out of a Twins tryout camp and traded to the Texas Rangers, on how he found out he was being promoted to the Rangers’ major league team last month: “We had just walked into our hotel in Albuquerque after getting off our van, and my roommate handed me his cell phone because I had changed my number. He said, ‘It’s a call from TC (Class AAA pitching coach Tony Clark).’ So I grabbed the phone, and TC goes, ‘Hey, Mark, you got the ball – you’re going to The Show.’

“I was with four of my teammates, and they all went ‘Yeah!’ It was really cool, one of those moments, just like when I got signed out of the tryout, that I’ll never forget.”

OVERHEARD

Tubby Smith, asked Thursday if it’s NCAA tournament or bust this season: “I don’t look at it that way – I’d be a fool.”

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